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BritBike's story page 2 Back to Stories main page
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| > Subject: A
BSA B44 Victor Special story Story by: Tommy Horner Seattle WA, USA |
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Left Photo from 1999 |
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| My father bought a 1969 BSA 441
Victor Special from his sisters husband, who had stripped it down and was using it for a
racing bike. When my dad got it he had to put all of the street amenities back on. He
drove the bike from 1970-1972. At this time he and my mother were getting ready to buy a
house so he sold the bike to my mothers older brother. My Uncle Bruce rode the Beezer around for a few years and then moved to Wheeling, WV.
When he moved, he put the bike in a friends garage and asked him to keep it there for a
little while. A little while became 25 years.
Now my folks lived up the hill a little ways from the garage where the bike sat ant I often played with the boy who lived at the house where the bike was being stored. We used to go out to the garage and sit on the BSA and pretend like we were riding it. I played on that old yellow bike for 10 years and always wished it could be mine. I remember telling my dad about this really cool old bike in Chris Davids' garage. So he told me the story of the Beezer and showed me some old pictures and, for a while, that was that. In 1992 the owner of the garage had his house repossessed and the bank had a contractor come and clean the place out. I was walking home from school one afternoon and I saw, sitting in a big pile of junk, the BSA. It was lying on its side and was all dented up, the headlight flattened, parts missing, rims rusted and the seat all ripped up. I realized that it was my father's old bike, so when I got home I called my Uncle. I asked if he still had the title to the BSA and he told me to call his X-wife. I got a hold of her and she said she would look. Five days later I got the title in the mail. I marched down the hill to claim my prize from the contractors. They said "take it" and I pushed that heavy old bike with it's flat tires up the hill (which never seemed so steep before then) to my house. I had plans for this bike! I got busy taking parts off and cleaning them but it was rusted and caked with an inch of grease and soon I gave up. (Of course I couldn't get the parts back on.) I never stopped dreaming of the day I would ride that old Beezer. In 1995 I got the spring bug again and started tinkering on that old hunk of metal that vaguely resembled a motorcycle. I asked my dad to help me get it back on the road, but due to the amount of real work this poor looking specimen of a 441 needed, he advised me to sell it and try to find something complete and in running order. Maybe even a YAMAHA……
Spring, 1997, I got busy on it again. I started scraping the grease off of the motor with
a wood chisel. It took me months of scrubbing and gallons of degreaser, but it started
looking like a bike again. I did some calling around and met some BSA guys and with a
little advice I got the beezer clean enough to be accepted into the shop of any
self-respecting mechanic. Then I got married, had a son, and joined the Navy. I made plans
from Norfolk VA to drop my bike off to have the piston air-hammered out over Thanksgiving
so I could get it over Christmas. So, in 1998, I had the motor rebuilt and heard it run for the first time. What a sound! I
had I had been told about how a BSA sounded, but I didn't expect it to sound so powerful!
I brought it home and called my dad down to the garage to hear it run. I tried to get it
started but only got it to sputter. "Here", my dad says, "let me show
you." He straddled the old bear and gave her a kick in the rump like you wouldn't
believe and she started right up like brand new. "You gotta kick it, son", my
old man said with a coy grin. Well, we both stood there smiling listening to this old bike
thumping and gurgling without much to say. I was one of those moments, I guess. Back to Stories main page |
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| > Subject: BSA In The Blood - 3 Generations of
BSA Riders! Story by Ralph Smith, UK. |
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 Leonard Smith Snr 1924 Model L 2 h.p. 349cc new model for 1923 |
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| A common metaphor to describe a persons
dedication to something is to liken them to a stick of rock… "cut him open and he will have Birmingham Small Arms
written all the way through". My allegiance to Small Heath's best is not THAT strong,
however if you examined my blood under a microscope you might find a few cells shaped like
winged letter B's! I own and ride an A50 Royal Star, my father rode a Golden Flash in the
Birmingham Police force and my grandfather rode a Model L.
This story of Beezer-riding Smiths starts with Leonard Smith Snr., my Grandfather. A true
Brummie, Leonard was born and worked in Small Heath so The deal offered by BSA to riders buying new in 1923 is outlined in the catalogue introduction. The text oozes confidence and BSA are bullish about their products. One of their boasts is that "there is a steel forging at every vital point". The factory was also offering an increase of warranty by 9 months to 12 in total and promised to foot the bill of carriage to the railway station nearest your dealer! What backed up the confidence of 1923 was a profit that year of £250,000. The postwar boom had finished by the early 1920s and the Model L was part of BSA's move
to produce cheaper lightweight motorcycle in an effort to reach a new market of
riders. Ixion sums up this period in a rather snobbish manner "Factories were
compelled to produce a monstrous regiment of rather crude lightweights, because only a
small percentage of British motorcyclists could any longer afford new roadster
machines." The machine doesn't make any more appearances in the family photo albums so I don't think he owned it for long. Probably due to the increased financial pressures of marriage and the mid war depression. My grandfather did wax eloquently about how he used to ride up to the Stonebridge island, on the Coventry Road going out of Birmingham. This is roughly where the National Motorcycle Museum is now and was apparently a popular meeting place for bike riding Brummies to chat and test each other machines.
(Originally published in the BSA Owners Club magazine 'The Star' January 1999)
Thanks go to Owen Wright for dating the machine and Steve Foden for providing the appropriate catalogue information. Back to Stories main page |
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| > Subject: Unreliable Brits? or Ride your A10
without oil! Story by Dave Maff Exeter, Devon, UK. |
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| I was sixteen and just traded in my first road bike
(Suzuki 80 K11) for a BSA A10 with a double adult sidecar attached. It was 1970.
I hadn't passed my test yet and could not resist this huge black monster. Not knowing much about this bike, I knew enough to look inside the oil tank
to check the oil was returning. After having a solo it seemed to have a life of its own and used to head
towards walls and things. Five of us had to walk home once when it did hit
a wall. One day I felt something `give` riding along, next time I looked inside the
oil tank the oil had stopped returning. Asking my biking mates (There seemed to be more of them then) they said;
check the oil pump, I made a mental note to do just that. Well, what with work and the fun of riding at weekends I somehow never
got around to it. Some weeks went by until someone said you really must check your oil pump. I didn't even know where it was.
I said it must be OK or it would have seized by now ? We took it apart. About a hundred pieces of oil pump fell on the floor!!
Now to the point. Why, with no oil pressure and a heavy sidecar riding around full of mates for God knows how long, didn't it seize.
I am still amazed at these bikes, solid, clean lines, uncluttered, bullet proof. I have just acquired a 1953 A7, but have no plans to put a sidecar on it.
Enjoy your bikes but survive to tell the tale. -- << Story by Dave Maff. Exeter, Devon, UK. Back to Stories main page |
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| > Subject: 1955 A10 GF,
found and bought on BSA Bulletin Board Story by Scott Larson.
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| Here she is in all of her mostly original glory.
The only thing about her not original ( she now has 4405 original miles) are the tires, the front rim, (I laced and trued it
myself), all wheel bearings, the handlebars, the rings, valve guides, timing side bushing
, the rod bearings and of course the gasket kit. I basically went through the whole bike ,
a good idea when they have sat for many seasons like that. All the cables, paint, seat, decals, everything else is original. I am so proud to be able
to post this on the site! The story, She was posted on BSA Bulletin Board, " Wanted, information on '55 bsa" I
started email correspondence, He had no idea what the bike was, barely heard of BSA.
Inherited the bike from his uncle who last rode it over 35 years ago! It sat under a tarp
in a heated garage until last summer when the original owners wife finally settled the estate and gave the bike to the nephew from whom I got it. I
transferred the title from the original owner , 1955 title to me.! She was covered in grease and dirt and had no spark but I new a cream puff when I saw it
and next thing it was in my garage. All the nuts and bolts are original and have no wrench
markings at all, Well except for the few nicks in the cad plate I put on them myself ;-). -- << Story by Scott Larson. Back to Stories main page |
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| > Subject: Hard
riding on a BSA! Story by Lannis. |
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| A Pitstop visitor asked for stories of our journeys
on BSAs. Here's one of my favorite rides. When I was much younger and a little more foolish (or less of a worry-wart)
than today, I strapped a bedroll on the back of my '69 Lightning and took off
for a few days. I rode from my home in Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay to
visit my grandma, then north to Gettysburg to see the battle grounds. I
camped out for a couple of nights, but stayed one night in a slightly seedy
(read "affordable") no-tell mo-tel in State College, PA, where I ran a chain
from the BSA (parked on the sidewalk outside my room) into my motel window and
around the leg of my bed. About time to go to bed I was startled by a
"thump" at my door. I opened it and there stood 4 guys in the motel courtyard, one
with a bolo knife in his hand, and all of them looking at me standing in my
door in my ladder-laced jump boots and leather jacket. There were several
pineapple tops at my feet on the sidewalk. As I tried to take this scene in,
wondering whether this was some sort of bizarre challenge, and deciding whether to scream and run or slam the door and hide, they all began
apologizing profusely in what I later found was Portuguese. They were a
construction crew who were having a late-night game of "dodge-pineapple" and
were sorry they had disturbed me. I went to bed with about 2 pounds of fresh
pineapple to my credit. About 4 days into the trip (during which the Beezer never missed a beat) I
opened my wallet to pay for gas and realized I had 3 dollars left, it was 9:00
in the morning, and I was on the shores of Lake Erie about 700 miles from home. This was in the days before credit cards, cell phones, and AAA memberships. $3.00 was IT. I turned around and headed home at a steady, gas- conserving 65 mph. Halfway back through Pennsylvania there was a sailplane meet going on in a wide valley, and I couldn't help stopping for four or five hours to watch them fly. By 9:00 that evening I was stopping at closed gas stations and tipping the excess gasoline in the hoses into my gas tank, still with 150 miles to go. I'll never forget crossing the Blue Ridge at Rockfish Gap about midnight, and riding down off the mountain on Rt 151 (which is so crooked you can meet yourself going the other way), with the lights of the Holiday Inn at the top of the gap disappearing in my mirrors. I wanted to stop and sleep so bad I could taste it. When I finally made it home about 2:00 AM, I was about as sore as I ever wanted to be, and glad to be there. The Lightning did its job the whole time, ran like a sewing machine (or a fine British watch). I've often wondered whether I could still do it; I'm sure a BSA could........... -- << Story by Lannis. Back to Stories main page |
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| > Subject: Have you
ever ? Story by: Kevin M. Lemire |
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Me neither !!!!! Back to Stories main page |
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